lxndrball: Alexander Ball
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Replacing a Time Bomb Capacitor

Replacing a Time Bomb Capacitor
9Y
Oct 25, 2014 10:53 PM
I have an early Timebomb that I really like. Eventually the watch began losing its ability to keep time and I stopped wearing the watch because it became unpredictable. It also constantly double clicked the seconds indicating a low charge.

Following this thread I had the capacitor replaced but soon it started doing the same thing. I looked into getting a watch winder, but these are expensive and don’t work on kinetic watches because they don’t generate enough speed.

I tried putting it on my electric drill for a half hour and it improved the charge a bit. However, it was clear this was going involve a lot of wear and tear. Then I came upon the thread for Seiko kinetic watches (which seem to have the same mechanism). Owners of those watches complain of loss of charge. Watch collectors knew that Seiko sold an induction charger to dealers so that they could charge up the watch after installing a new capacitor. Someone suggested that any induction coil would work. Some use a Philips tea light charger that has three induction coils so they can keep three watches charged at once. I had an old Braun toothbrush and put it on the top for a few hours as described. Nothing. It was suggested on the Seiko thread to try and find the charging coils and orient the toothbrush inductor coil parallel to the watch coils. This is easy to see through the clear back of the Timebomb. Soon the double click disappeared in the orientation shown with the winding stem up and I have been wearing the watch without losing charge ever since. The problem with the kinetic watch design is that the pendulum magnet does not generate enough electricity in the two coils to charge the capacitor. This is a simple solution to bring the watch back to manufacturer spec and keep it that way. Whenever you are not wearing the watch just put it on the charging stand. Unlike a watch winder this makes no noise, causes no wear and tear, and works perfectly.
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